


Hearts and Homelands

by Regina_Draconis (skele_smol)



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Callum tries so hard, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, My First Work in This Fandom, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Rayla Needs a Hug (The Dragon Prince), Romance, Zubeia's riddles are good advice, between season 3 and Through the Moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/Regina_Draconis
Summary: The fight is won. Zym, reunited with his mother and Ezran, the child King of Katolis must return to his lands. With all the talk of home, Rayla feels a little out of place. Still ghosted by her village -The Silver Grove- for her soft heart and perceived weakness in sparing the child-king’s life, and with the alliance between the human and Xadian races still so new, the teenaged she-elf is torn between her heart’s loyalty and her loyalty to her heart.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	Hearts and Homelands

**Author's Note:**

> I've been rewatching this show multiple times and every time I do, I fall in love with the characters all over again and I love them deeper each time. I wanted to write this as a sort of finding my feet fic in the fandom.
> 
> I'm sorry if it's not to everyone's tastes, but I hope you like it anyhow.

** Hearts and Homelands. **

The bareness of the high rock as it pierces the clouds and splits the skies is a declaration of boast and boldness. A proud confidence that this mountain is, in all of this vast world, the noblest of all the Kingdom. That this mountain and those who dwelled here would forever be the ones to dare stand tall against the darkness and who would always reach for the sun.

A wind, warming rather than chilling despite the altitude, whips a few wisps of white hair across Rayla’s face. It twirls and coaxes the longer strands out from behind her pointed ears, giggling and reminding her of how the younger elfling children from the grove would beg for her to come and play with them.

_Before they didn’t._

Behind her, below her, ahead of her and above her, the track that she climbs snakes around the side of the mountain. Following the carved steps, smoothed by both magic and the rawness of the naked elements leads her to an altar. An altar with a sheer drop, wreathed in clouds, to the right. Standing here, alone, without Callum beside her, without the dark mage Viren before her or the panicked squeals of an infant dragonling calling out to her, it’s quiet. Almost peaceful.

… Almost.

 _“You’re too late. I’ve already won!”_

The sneering voice and the dark, soulless eyes that had burned in sinister triumph as the mage slowly drained Zym’s lifeforce from his tiny body still eddy around inside her thoughts. His words as he admired the defenceless Zubiea, caught in her slumber of heartbreak and despair still chills her blood and squeezes into a cruel fist that crushes around her heart.

 _“So still. So perfect. I’ll harvest her later.”_

As though it were his right to treat another living being as little more than simple ingredients for him to take and use to further his corrupt ambitions.

Slowly, lavender eyes open wide as Rayla stares off into the distance. Toes to the edge of the precipice, her keen elven sight traces along the line of the horizon. Searching for something she doesn’t quite understand and only pausing when her eyes began to water as she looks down at the dizzying drop through the sea of skies and clouds. 

This place, Xadia… it was her home. And it was so beautiful. But it made Rayla feel something strange deep within.

Something that didn’t quite fit. Something that still didn’t feel quite right.

“There you are.”

Her breath punches out of her lungs in a startled gasp and, as her feet turn and her body twists, Runaan’s lessons and her assassin’s instinct kicks in. Her hands reach up behind herself for her blades and her agile form lunges before her brain can even place the familiar gentle voice.

The gentle voice that morphs into a startled gasp of its own as Callum stares back at her with a limp smile clinging to his lips. A smile that does nothing to mask the alarm in his woodland eyes nor soothe the way that Rayla’s heart tumbles through her feet and down into the rock below as both simultaneously notice the way that the Moonshadow blades cross at the neophyte mage’s throat.

“Well, alright then. Point taken. No sneaking up on the former assassin with the slish-slashin’ swords.”

The tease is weak. Feeble. She knows she’s frightened him. She’s frightened him more times than what is fair for anyone to endure in the last forty-eight hours alone. First when she was the last of the three to recover her breath from the thin air during their ascent up the Storm Spire. Then when she instructed him to run with Ezran and Zym, telling him that she would stay and fight alone before pleading for him to remember her as she gifted both Ethari’s moon opal and a final kiss to him. Saying without speaking the actual words that it was her intention to die upon this mountain and finally make up for a false crime that she believed her parents to have burdened upon her. And then finally, when she had broken Viren’s dark consumption of Zym the only way she could think of. Leaving Callum above to watch her disappear over the edge of the mountainside and be swallowed up by the thick blanket of clouds below.

She knows she’s frightened him - she’s frightened herself - and she _knows_ by the way that his earnest gaze never wavers that he places no blame on her for any of it.

_“Because she’s a hero. Because she’s kind and brave and selfless. Because that’s what makes Rayla… Rayla.”_

Because he’s smitten and understanding, and an optimistic fool. And he sees so much good in everyone else… right up until the moment he realizes that not everyone is so good as he is.

Callum blinks slowly and that bright optimism that she loves to see peeking out through the green and hazel mosaics in his eyes soften. His face falters, cheeks slacken, and his smile finally wanes and fades as his lips press together into a tight line of concern instead. “Uhhh, is everything okay?”

Her head hangs low, so low that he can’t see her face because no, everything is not okay and she doesn’t want him to see just how not okay _she_ is. The silver-white of her hair gleams between her horns, burning like star-fire in the glow of the setting sun. It ripples as it shifts and slips from behind her sharp ears to slide forward and curtain around equally sharp and delicate features. Shrouding her further and hiding her vulnerabilities from him. The strain in her shoulders from holding her attack stance so rigidly and for so long suddenly makes itself known. Burning all the way down to her hands that still angle her twin swords to his throat. And, right at the end, her fingers flex and tense and tremble around the hilts… her grip slackening.

“Rayla?”

Her perception of time feels distorted… _again._ Everything around her slows down.

And, once again, she feels as though she is falling.

She barely notices the moment that her blades slip from her fingers to tumble somersaults through the air. Piercing through rock, the blades sink deep into the mountainside. But all that she can see is herself hanging in the air, her eyes closing as she surrenders herself into the infinite sky above, below and all around her. The sky that had already swallowed her once. Her hand reaching out to the rapidly shrinking silhouette of Callum, kissed by the golden touch of the sun and lost to the clouds. Her fingers grasping at the endless crevasse of blue before everything became a blur. A blur that swirls out of existence…

The memories, the present, it all rushes her by so fast, yet so slow. She feels almost suspended and yet almost thrown and nothing feels quite real anymore. Then there’s an impact and she’s sure that she feels her bones move in a way that she’s not entirely certain they should. She’s jangled, rattled but, without looking, she knows that she’s safe and not a broken and bloodied mess of torn skin and mashed organs. She knows that this time, the impact is from falling forwards, into Callum’s arms and not her diving into Viren’s torso to drag him over the cliff edge and into death.

But she _is_ broken and she _is_ a mess. Inside, she is broken and torn and tattered. Inside, she’s a mess of conflicting emotions that she doesn’t know how to sort through.

Inside she is still a small, frightened elfling child, heartbroken and mocked and scorned by her clan for something that just isn’t true. Was _never_ true. But, still, her own kind, her own _kin,_ chose to distance themselves from her, long before banishing her from her home. Before finally declaring and marking her a traitor to her lands - just like her parents - for her soft heart and perceived weakness in sparing the life of Katolis’s child-king. Banishing her for sparing the lives of two humans who saw through the racially charged and vengeance-driven prejudices. Humans who _forgave_ her for her part - little as it may be - in the assassination of their former King, their father. Humans who saw in her, her worth and strength as well as her wit and loyalty. And a human who loved her enough to risk his own life on a leap of faith and a desperate hope that he might save her with a primal spell he had seen performed only once by a Skywing mage born to the sky arcanum.

She sniffles quietly against Callum’s shoulder. Her three long fingers and dexterous thumbs curl into the younger boy’s jacket. Clutching and clinging as she pushes her face deeper into the crook of his neck, folds herself harder into his arms and enveloping herself in his scent. Holding onto him so fiercely that she knows if they’d been seated instead of standing, she’d be climbing into his lap with her determination to be as close to him as possible… to feel as _safe_ as possible.

_Safe… safe… safe… please keep me safe._

It’s then that Callum hears the sound that almost stops his heart and he instinctively tightens his hold on her. The same broken little sounds that had seen her flee from him that night in the Midnight desert and had beckoned him to follow. The night that he’d first seen just how truly young she is. _Like him._ How lost and alone and how _fragile_ she is. He presses his cheek against the top of her head, his half-lidded gaze following the intricate swirls and whorls that decorate the elegant horns that nestle in the gleaming white strands of her hair. “It’s been a rough few days, huh?”

He can feel Rayla’s shoulders shaking and he more feels the sound of her struggling to breathe against her crying rather than hears it. She’s so tired, exhausted really. They both are. They _all_ are. But, for the elf, this battle, getting here, learning some of the truth behind her parent’s disappearance has just been so much to lay on top of her already guilt-ridden conscious.

So Callum can’t help the gentle smile that curves on his lips when he hears the single quiet, tear-stained laugh and the whispered, “Yeah” that she muffles into his scarf. Couldn’t help but lean into her deeper while her arms tighten around him and she repeats her affirmation a little more strongly and clearly. “Yeah, it’s been a rough few days.”

“Soooo,” Callum draws out the vowel for a beat longer than necessary. Purposely shielding the she-elf’s slightly louder sniffles as she collects herself. Protecting her vulnerability while she gathers together her little cracked and broken pieces and carefully hides them safely behind her walls once more. Only trailing off when he feels the lithe line of Rayla’s spine tensing beneath his fingers, indicating that she was ready enough to step back and face the outside world again.

And then, Callum says the wrong thing and the tiny smile that was gradually creeping onto Rayla’s lips stalls.

“You ready to go home?”

Rayla’s chest seizes around her lungs. Her ribs feel more akin to the steel bars of a cage rather than flexible bone and her heart flits and flutters like a trapped, frightened bird caught inside its prison. _Home?_

“Well, yeah.” It takes a moment for Rayla to realize that her question of ‘home’ wasn’t something she had simply thought, but rather something that she had voiced. And, judging by the delight that brimmed inside Callum’s hopeful gaze, it was something that the human boy anticipated sharing with his new-found elven love.

“We journeyed through the Kingdom of Katolis, and through Xadia… We brought Zym back to his home. Back to his mother. We beat the bad guys and stopped the war.” His voice cracks with optimism. Cautious optimism when he notices that Rayla’s reaction fails to match his own excitement, but optimism none-the-less. “We did what we set out to do.” Another pause. A longer one this time as Callum searches the she-elf’s flat expression for anything. A hint of a smile, a glimmer of mischief… Anything. But he finds nothing. “Don’t you want to go home?”

Of _course,_ she does. There’s nothing in all of Xadia that she wants more. But the truth is… her home doesn’t want _her._ Silvergrove, the other Moonshadow elves, they had cast her out. Ghosted her. Even if she were to return, no one would ever know. The only tether that still bound her to her clan was the enchanted bejewelled flower that would continue to drift across the silvery surface of the Lotus pond until her death. Then it would sink and rejoin its brethren, already lining the bottom of the pool, but hers would be the only one the other elves encouraged to be forgotten.

Her insides clench and twist as, in her mind, the distorted view of Ethari; Runaan’s husband slowly comes into focus. His gentle features and kind eyes grief-stricken and haunted as he refused to meet her gaze when she had asked him. _“Ethari. Can I ever come home again?”_

Even now his defeated response hangs hollow in her ears. _“I don’t know. Goodbye, Rayla.”_

“Rayla?”

The gentle call of her name in Callum’s soft voice may help her find her mental footing faster, may pull her out of her own head and harsh judgements quicker. For a while at least. And she _is_ getting better at stamping down the self assassination that she _knows_ is undeserving. But she also knows - even as she shakes her head sharply and blinks slowly and pushes the memories deep down inside her, close to her heart - that the intruding, painful thoughts will never dislodge completely. Not yet. She _knows_ that they’ll return to torment her in her dreams or undermine her in the moments that she needs the clarity the most.

“You know that I can’t.” She says quietly. Then she lifts her chin and catches the boy mage’s startled gaze in her own as hurt edges into the pale lavender irises and she’s unable to keep the bite out of her next words. “You _know_ because _you_ were there! I’m a ghost to them. They can’t hear me or see me anymore and they don’t _want_ to.”

“No, I know… I didn’t mean… I’m not-” Callum’s stuttering pauses as he sighs. He drops his gaze away from the grief that simmers in Rayla’s eyes and studies the cracks in the ground for a moment, recollecting his thoughts before he glances back up at the elf. “You could come home with me… to Katolis.” He tries again, but the uncertainty in his voice makes the invitation sound more a pained obligation than the heartfelt request he intended.

“No.”

Her immediate rejection slams into Callum’s guts as powerfully as any kick he’d ever received in his training with Soren. And it crushes the breath from his windpipe far more brutally than when he’d felt the hand of what had once been Kasef, wrapping around his throat. Again he drops his gaze. Although, this time, it was more to preserve his own dignity and hide his own tears that nipped at the corners of his eyes, rather than to offer Rayla privacy. “Oh… I just… I thought-”

He’s cut off mid-sentence when he feels Rayla’s hand touch his shoulder. And it’s clear when he peeks up at her, watching her through his lashes, that when she bites her lip and hesitates, she’s searching for the right words to say. Words to offer him some semblance of comfort because somehow he _knows_ that whatever she plans to say next, he is not going to like.

“I don’t belong in Katolis, Callum.” She’s trying to console him with soft hands and a softer voice, but the carefully measured gentleness cuts him deep, more so than her usual bluntness. This soft rejection reeks of pity. Pity that claws itself deeper into his chest and forces his heart up into his throat so that he can’t really breathe. Pity that further sours the hurt that he feels curling itself up comfortably in the hollow space left behind in his chest. “Humans, your people, they won’t want me there.”

“But… but, _I_ want you there, Rayla.” Miserably and in a small voice, Callum tries to counter her practicality with heartfelt honesty. Tries to appeal to her feelings for him and clutches at every reassurance that he can think of. “They don’t have to know. You can stay inside the castle. Me and Ezran, Aunt Amaya, even Soren… we can protect you-”

And it backfires spectacularly.

“I _can’t_ go with you!” The she-elf’s rich brogue hardens. The edge of her words biting in her effort to keep her voice from trembling. “I’m an elf, Callum. Not some bird or pet that you can keep caged inside the castle for my ‘protection’. I belong here, in Xadia.”

“Really?” Callum arches a brow and attempts to keep his voice gentle, even, despite feeling the tension and hearing the intensity building in his own words. “Then tell me, _where_ in Xadia do you belong, Rayla? Where will you go? You said it yourself, _I_ was there when you learned that your clan cast you out! _I_ was there when _he_ turned his back on you. Even after you tried to explain yourself, Ethari still didn’t forgive you!”

Rayla’s mouth tightens. Soft lips pulling downwards as her wide eyes sharpen. A steely, angry shadow passes behind the bright irises and darkens the pale lavender into deep violet. There’s a great deal of emotion behind the words that Callum speaks, and even more truth, but that doesn’t make what he says any less hurtful for her to listen to. “Then I won’t go anywhere.” She snaps. Catching his eye and holding his gaze. Forcing him to see the hurt that his tactlessness causes her. “I’ll stay right here, with Zym and his mother. I’ll stay where I can protect them. Where _I_ can make a difference. _That’s_ where I belong!”

“ _You_ already made a difference.” Callum bites back. His eyes, chips of emerald, gleam wetly in a mix of frustration and despair. “ _You_ stayed and _you_ fought. I watched you throw yourself from that very edge to save the lands that did _everything_ it could to stop you even getting here.” The boy pauses, emotional and weary as he pulls back the hand that had gestured toward the peak’s edge to instead push his thumb and forefinger against his shuttered eyes. He loves her. There’s no denying that he does. But he already almost lost her once and now her damned elven pride and stubbornness is threatening him into losing her for a second time. It’s almost enough to bring him to tears… Almost. “You’ve _more_ than made up for whatever crimes you think you committed. Whatever crimes you think that your paren-”

“Don’t!” That single word cracks through the air like a clap of thunder. And when Callum peeks through his lashes to hold Rayla’s gaze, he can see the frustration there as she steps backwards, holding herself just out of his reach. He can see the hurt she feels from both the truth in his words and the unintended cruelty behind them. “Just… don’t, Callum.” 

They may not have travelled together for long, but in that short time, Callum’s critical eye and eidetic memory have already familiarized and neatly categorized the subtle tells in the she-elf’s body language. He knows, by the way that Rayla’s shoulders pull back and how her hands fist against her hips, that he’s pushed her too hard. And he knows that even if he were to relent and regroup and try to reason with her now, if he were to try and find a more agreeable compromise, Rayla would dig her heels in and find every excuse possible for why it was impossible and why she _had_ to stay.

For all the myths and superstitions and frankly, cruel and slanderous “facts” that the humans taught their children about the elven races, Callum had learned through Rayla that the vast majority of such accusations were wrong. However, the stories that he had heard about the pride and stubbornness of elf-kind was, indeed, proving themselves to be firmly situated in the truth. Though, more-so in elven temperament rather than elven savagery. Particularly in the temperament of the Moonshadow elves… and even more specifically in the temperament of this particular Moonshadow elf.

It’s fighting a losing battle when Rayla’s mind is made. Sure, she’ll begrudgingly concede defeat… temporarily. But, she has proven time and again that if she feels strongly enough she _will_ return to do what she views as right and expected of her.

So, instead, the boy mage sighs and drops his hand from his face. Lets his arms - still tender and sore from the scores of feathers that had erupted through his skin after he too had leapt from the peak of the spire to follow Rayla as she had plummeted toward the ground - hang limply at his sides, his fingers twitching with frustrated energy. “Alright.”

The Moonshadow elf blinks slowly, cautiously, her confusion softens her delicate features. “Alright?”

She’s hesitant. Careful. Like she’s expecting Callum’s agreement to be some kind of ploy. Sounding out each syllable slowly as though the word sat foreign on her tongue. And if Callum wasn’t so exhausted, wasn’t as frustrated and upset as he was, he’d have found the manner in which the elf crinkles her nose and tilts her head in perfect mimicry of a curious dragonling cute.

“Alright,” Callum repeats. He takes one slow step closer to Rayla, his eyes resting on the tension still bunching in the she-elf’s lithe frame. Watching for the slightest twitch in her shoulders or twist to her hips that might indicate an instinctive lunge toward or away from him. But it doesn’t come. The only movement that Rayla makes is righting her head to watch the boys approach. “I don’t like it, but I won’t ask you to come with me.”

_Then stay here, with me... Please, stay Callum._

It’s what she wants to say. Wants to ask of him. But instead, Rayla bites her tongue and stiffens as Callum’s palms raise to cup either side of her face, though she’s quick to melt into his familiar touch. She curls her own long fingers around his as she nuzzles deeper into the softness of his skin against her cheeks. Sighing through her nose, her heart tripping in her chest as his thumbs and index finger bracket around her elegant, tapered ears while his other digits thread into her white silken hair.

“I’m not going to force you to come back with me.” He presses his forehead to hers as he closes his eyes and steadies his breaths, despite how he can feel his throat tighten around his words. “But I have to go back. I have to help Ez and Aunt Amaya, Soren. I have to help our people rebuild and recover what Viren did to our homes. The Five Kingdoms are broken and divided. _Katolis_ is broken and divided.” He steps back, the warmth of his skin on hers fading before he replaces one warmth with another. His lips touch and sear his affection into the skin of her forehead, beneath her parted bangs. A tender, farewell kiss and a choked whisper of a voice that flutters around her ears. “I love you, my stubborn elf.”

And then he’s pulling away. Eyes wet and glistening with the unshed tears that Rayla just barely glimpses before he’s gone. 

Taking with him, the last fragment of her broken heart.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

The dawn has already come and gone. Lighting the skies first in streaks of monochrome and then with subtle mosaics of rich golden colours. And with it, the combined armies of Katolis, Duren and what remained of the Sunfire elves had departed. Gone long before the day grew bright and warm, but not before Callum came to her one last time. With one last obvious and weak attempt to try and sway her from her decision.

_“Will you at least come and say goodbye? Ezran’s really going to miss you.”_

Rayla sighs into the quiet. Her chin rests, propped atop of her knees while her arms fold around her bent legs, holding them tight against her body and making herself as small as possible. Behind her, she can hear Zym’s soft cries echoing around the dragon’s lair. Her sharp ears twitch as she listens to the dragonling calling out for the playmate he’d lost in Ezran’s departure. The vast chamber in which his mother had slumbered alone for years intensifying the ceaseless yips and whines before they drift and escape out into the skies painted in vibrant hues.

But the sorrowful cries are unheard, and Ezran had long since left. Most likely he and the curious assortment of humans and elves have reached the outer edge of Thunderfall by now. Most likely pausing in their journey, their sights set on skirting the Midnight Desert and travelling through Lux Aurea next before finally heading toward the divide between the lands.

And long gone with them… is Callum.

Rayla breath hitches in her throat as she shifts her position. Squeezing her lashes shut as she presses her eyes against the back of her knees, trying to control the sudden rush of tears stinging at the corners. Her teeth sink into her lower lip in an effort to prevent it trembling while a stubborn sob pushes its way up into her throat. 

“You stayed?” Zubeia, the Dragon Queen, drawls softly from behind the brooding she-elf. Her mother’s eye carefully watching as her son trots to paw at the elf’s long legs. Whining miserably for Rayla to uncurl her body from around herself and quickly scrambles up to push his own tiny body into her arms when she does. Her chest aches beneath the dragonling’s baleful stare. Sympathizing with his obvious confusion and loneliness in the absence of his friend, and reading her own loneliness reflected back at her in his wide, shining eyes. The infant creature’s mournful whine hangs in the air, it both rumbles in his throat and shimmers in stormcloud irises that shift to the side. Craning his head over Rayla’s shoulder and watches his mother expectantly as she carefully lowers herself to lay beside the pair and purrs. “Why, Moonchild?”

Pressing her fingers beneath Zym’s chin and petting the tiny dragonling, Rayla sighs quietly before repeating the words that she had told to Callum only the night before. “Majesty. I bound myself to see this task through.” Her eyes itch with tears and her nose burns in frustration, but it’s when her lower lip trembles - even as she sets her jaw tight and presses her face against the dragonlings gleaming mane - that her sorrow finally breaks through and gives a quiver to her voice. “To make things right. I promised to give my heart for Xadia.”

“Oh?” The Queen of the dragons tilts her head, studying the young former assassin carefully. Her primal eyes remind Rayla of the stone that Callum had once used, right at the beginning of it all. The stone that he had relied upon before he had found and made his first connection to the primal magics of the sky arcanum. The very same stone that he had selflessly and without hesitation sacrificed to see Azymondias born. She can see the same swirls of colours, the same pale silvers and light blues threading through the same dark indigoes and steely greys, in an ever-moving dance - the same living storm contained within the dragoness’s eye.

“Hmmm.” The dragon hums, her voice crooning softly. “I see no such binding, elfling.” She raises her great head to join her son and her elf companion in their forlorn gaze toward the horizon. Toward the unseen border between their lands and the human kingdoms. “And it is Xadia that finds itself indebted to you, child. Not you who is indebted.”

Rayla, still seated, turns slowly. Far too stunned by the majestic being’s words to even bother to try and feign any kind of understanding for Zubeia’s riddles. Feeling how her cheeks burn hot as well as cursing her young age more than ever in the presence of the ancient storm dragon and her confusing wisdom. “Majesty? I don’t know what- I don’t understand… what does that mean?”

Zubeia’s reptilian lips pull back into a maternal smile and she finishes voicing her cryptic thoughts with a throaty chuckle. A sound that had chilled Rayla’s blood when it had curled, mockingly, from between Sol Regem’s bared teeth along with a promise of death only days earlier now warms her when richly intoned with the dragoness’s gentleness.

“It means, child, that your heart is not yours to gift to Xadia, but rather, it is Xadia’s gift to you. It is one that is bestowed to all who are birthed in magic such as we.” Again, the Dragon Queen offers a gentle smile. One that has Rayla convinced that the dragon is teasing her. “It means that Xadia will always be a part of you, and that you will always carry your connection to Xadia with you. Inside of you. And it means that wherever it is that your journey may take you - be it here or in Katolis - wherever it is that you choose to go, wherever path it is that you find your heart leads you, you are always home.”

Rayla’s fingers, still buried knuckle deep in Zym’s mane, stop moving as she contemplates this revelation. While Zym, confused by the sudden cease in her petting, presses his head up into her hand. The tiny dragonling chirps loudly his encouragement for the elf to continue the soothing, rhythmic motions once more. But Rayla remains motionless as she glances upwards, her startled eyes snapping wide before she blinks and refocuses. Her mouth hanging slightly open and loose as though she meant to protest but her stalled brain simply cannot find the words. 

Again, the dragoness chuckles.

“Do not look so alarmed, child.” Contained within her storming irises, Zubeia’s amusement flashes merrily. Lightening the pale blues and brightening the silvers into stunning swirls of purest white. “I am not so old that I can not recognize the heartsick pining of one for their beloved.” Then her amusement fades and her voice softens. Feeling for the conflict that she sees hooding in Rayla’s eyes, and noting how, despite the rigidity in her shoulders, the she-elf’s posture droops. “You long to be with him, yet you choose not to follow him?”

“I-I…” Tears nip at Rayla’s nose and her ear tips heat in embarrassment as her words stutter and stall.

Then she pauses completely. Recollects her swirling thoughts in order to calm her heart from leaping around inside her chest like a terrified rabbit caught in a snare. Arranging them back into sense and reminding herself of all the secret glances throughout their journey that she’d gifted Callum when she knew he wasn’t looking. Remembering the times that she had caught his cautiously roaming eyes on her when he’d sat with his back pressed up against the wall of whichever cave they’d set up camp in for the night. His sketchbook open and propped against his bent knees as his hand worked fervently to etch her likeness onto the paper.

She sighs, her brows tugging low as she looks away. Making what she’d thought to be a stubborn show of disinterest in the subject of Callum and her feelings for the boy mage. Hoping that the sudden intense interest that she had developed in studying the unimpressive rock walls around her - though the movement was more her simply turning her flushed cheeks away from Zubeia’s knowing smile - is enough to discourage the dragon from furthering this subject of discussion.

To Rayla’s dismay, it is not.

“Our lives upon these lands are but a fleeting moment in the grander scheme. Far too brief to limit ourselves to what we believe ourselves to know as truth. Never, in my lifetime, did I dare hope for a miracle, but you and that boy delivered to me two. First, you recovered my son and burdened yourselves with the dangerous task of returning him to my side. And secondly, you founded and nurtured the beginnings of unity between Xadia and the human lands by caring and protecting one another when it would have been far more simple for one to betray the other.” The dragoness rises slowly. But instead of returning to the sleeping chamber that lay deeper in the lair, Zubeia moves her huge form toward the mouth of the caverns. Pushing her face from the cooling shadows and out into the sunlight as she closes her eyes. Humming and luxuriating in the pleasurable bliss that she finds in basking in the suns warming touch. And, after a moment or two of silence, she continues to speak her wisdom.

“Dragons, elves and humans. Each of us is born with our own connection to these lands. Some of us are born to the powers of the primal forces, others are born simply sensitive to the magics of the arcanum’s. And the last of us are born with little to none of either. But that does not make any one of us more or less superior than the others. For it is in sharing our bonds, teaching and learning from one another our individual strengths… that the truer magics, the truer gifts, of these lands are revealed.” Zubeia pauses again. This time though it is to turn her head back to the caves and to offer the elf a knowing smile. A smile that is met with the high curve of a single curious eyebrow as lilac eyes watch the dragoness unfurl her great wings. “For too long our lands, our ties, to one another has been severed. The violent ways of our histories are old and dying, and for that I am glad. It is time for such hateful hearts to step aside and allow our young, our children, to again teach us the magic that we have long since forgotten.”

For a third time, Zubeia pauses. Though this time it is to inhale deeply. Taking the sweet, clean air deep into her lungs before testing how the winds fill the flexible skin that webs between each boney scaffold of her wing. Feeling how the appendages cut through the breezes with ease and precision and confident that her strength is sufficient to carry her out into the horizon for her first flight in many long moons. It is then that the Dragon Queen extends an invitation to the young Moonshadow elf. An invitation that both stuns and thrills her.

“It appears that I have neglected my duties for far too long. Perhaps you might honour me with your company while I correct my negligence.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

It was high noon by the time that the curious entourage reached the outer edge of the Midnight Desert. The early morning sunlight, then diffused and soft and dancing through the dappled mosaics of shadow and leaf, had suddenly ignited into a punishing heat. Forcing both Amaya and Janai into agreement that breaking early to water the mounts as well as themselves before pressing onwards to be the wisest option. 

Now, the sun beat down upon them with unrestrained brutality. Slowing their progress to a crawl as the muggy heat presses in and swaddles them to the point where even the Sunfire elves grumbled and sweating offered no relief. It slides down their necks in thick viscous globules. It oozes between their shoulders to pool against lower backs, uncomfortably sticking to their skin, hair and clothing alike.

It has been hours since the three armies strong caravan had left the Storm Spire. Hours since saying goodbye to Zym and the newly awakened Zubeia.

And hours since Callum had reluctantly bid farewell to Rayla.

He had barely spoken a word since. Shrugging off Ezran’s excited gushing about how amazing he was having harnessed enough control over his connection to the sky Arcanum to fly on mage wings. Further shrugging off his little brothers attempts to pester him into letting him see them. Ignoring Soren’s brash and somewhat endearing attempts to engage him into familiar banter. But Soren’s wit and sarcasm just wasn’t quite the same and not as sharp as the she-elf’s.

Huffing a quiet and irritable breath, and with the heat from above beating down upon his back mercilessly, Callum fiddles with the reins between his thumbs and forefingers. Wincing when the soft leather chafes soon-to-be blisters into his digits. The skin at his nape feels sticky. Itchy. His discomfort further fouling his already irritable mood as thick sweat curls and stiffens the short hairs plastered to his neck beneath his scarf as it dries.

_His scarf._

He unwinds the sweat sodden garment from around his throat. His heart freezing in his chest for a moment before it sinks… and then falls, down into his belly and continues tumbling when he notices the faintest traces of Rayla’s scent. The subtle notes of magic and the sweetness of moonlight is almost entirely hidden beneath his own smell. But it _is_ still there… still clinging stubbornly to the garments thick woven fibres.

He misses her. He feels empty. Lonely. There is a silence in his soul while, all around him, are the sounds of bustling activity. The steady hoofbeats of the horses ahead of him matches the staccato of his heartbeat, the gentle tail swishes of the Shadowpaw as it moves easily beneath him, and the tired but companionable murmurings of human and elf as they drag their feet over the ever-shifting terrain.

Murmurs that ripple when a shadow cuts across the sky. Shifting the voices away from simple conversations and into cries of alarm that unravel among the ranks while the shadow in the sky wheels and dips and circles back around. Cries that very quickly shift, once again, and slip back into the realms of less panicked tones but more toward simply alerting those at the head and tail of the line that something has changed.

But Callum pays the calls no heed. He’s disinterested in anything beyond his moping and brooding and licking his own wounds. That is until a single word worms its way through his mental disconnection and finally jolts his brain back into the realm of awareness.

“Dragon!”

_Dragon?_

Arcing on outstretched wings, her wintry scales gleaming in the sunlight, Zubeia announces her arrival with warmth and fondness. “It appears that our farewells were premature.” Again, the dragoness circles above the procession, passing over much lower and moving with a slowness and grace that indicated her intent to land.

Her words catch in Callum’s ears and immediately a small smile grows on the boy mage’s lips of its own accord. His heart wakes up and beats on hummingbird wings behind his ribs as he searches for the familiar form of the Moonshadow elf astride the majestic creature. But, to his dismay, he does not see her. Even as the Dragon Queen gathers her limbs and folds her wings Callum’s gaze finds no evidence of her, only of Zym as the dragonling glides eagerly from his mother’s mane and barrels into Ezran’s arms. Lathering the child-King’s face in enthusiastic licks and statically charged nuzzles.

Amid Ezran’s ecstatic giggles and Zym’s delighted squeals and chirps, Callum can feel his hopes sinking. His quiet excitement over Zubeia’s appearance, no matter reserved, crumbles and he can feel his heart shattering all over again as he turns away. His head bowed. His lower lip trembling.

Rayla didn’t come.

Then he feels arms sliding around his waist as someone joins him upon the Moonshadow mount. Recognizes the warmth of a lithe and lean body pressing against his back. And savors the delicate scent of magic and moonlight that surrounds him, enveloping his senses as soft lips press behind his ear. A whispered apology hidden in unapologetic words draws the smile back to Callum’s lips as he closes one hand over the topmost one of his surprise companion. Fitting his five fingers between four as she squeezes his softly.

“Take me home, you big dumb human.”


End file.
